War-Damaged Children.Some Aspects of Recovery
- Author:
Margot Hicklin. Association of Psychiatric
Social Workers, 4 The Drive, Acton, London, W.3. Is. 6d.
This Report is enriched by the personal observations of the author who ran a Hostel at Windermere for boys coming from Belsen, Buchenwald and Auschwitz in July 1945 and afterwards worked under the Control Commission in Germany. She is, therefore, able to give living examples which illustrate the wisdom she has painfully acquired.
Understanding of the children’s problem and of the possibilities of recovery is based on psychological knowledge. Food grabbing and hoarding is seen not merely as a response to immediate hunger, but as symbolic of the whole attitude of a child who has lost faith in the world. It is significant that bread holds a particular importance as the ” staff of life (The reaction in this country to bread rationing was out of” all proportion to its hardship.)
In the light of such knowledge one is driven to relate even first-aid plans to long term policy. Measures for giving shelter and restoring health are ineffective unless they lead to full development and adjustment to the community. It is striking that some of these principles as stated by the author were threshed out at a conference in Switzerland in 1945.* ^
A serious warning is given against impressing on the ^ child ideas for his welfare before he is able to tolerate them. He may be unable to stand family life if he has not yet mastered his own loss and suffering. At all .j stages the educator must beware of forcing standards at a pace which are beyond the strength of the wardamaged child. Recovery may be by fits and starts and symptoms appear after long lying latent. Adjustment to the community, both his own small group and society at large, depends on the child’s stage of develop- ^ ment. Manipulation of his environment may condition t his response but does not reach the nature of that response. It is well to remember these simple truths for we tend to devise ideal surroundings out of our ‘< pity for deprived children and then to drive them to conform.
Educational and social factors are analysed in their bearing on recovery. In international work, language problems obviously have a special place but the differentiation as to what this means in the different stages of childhood is valuable. The lessons learnt from handling children in camps will be echoed by those who had to deal with evacuated children in hostels and indeed by all workers with ” homeless ” children.
Whatever the degree of suffering and the violence of the break in home life, there is a common feature in children who have lost that natural link which is fundamental to satisfactory development?the confidence and security in their own family relationshipsCommon humanity compels us to study the effect on war-damaged children. Prudence should drive us to apply these lessons to every type of deprived child. The particular value of this pamphlet is not only its deep understanding of an acute international problem, but the linking up of such problems with the underlying principles of Mental Health.
d c A * S.E.P.E.C. Resolution I. Material and medical measures of help for child victims of the war are inseparable jr^psychological and spiritual help. , Resolution V. Assistance to child victims of the war will be given in principle in the country where they are found. i 4
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